Texas school district’s RFID tracking of students goes to court

Sophomore is suing, claiming badges violate her religious freedom.

A Texas high school sophomore has filed suit against San Antonio's Northside Independent School District, seeking to block her expulsion for refusing to wear a radio frequency identification badge in school. The girl and her parents are claiming the policy is a violation of her First Amendment rights, citing religious beliefs as the reason she has refused to wear the badge.

Northside began issuing RFID badges to students at two schools in September as part of an effort to track students within the school and their attendance of classes. Back then, Northside spokesman Pascual Gonzalez told Wired's David Kravets that the RFID cards were an essential part of making sure they could get state aid tied to attendance. "What we have found, they are there, they're in the building and not in their chairs," Gonzalez said. "If they are on campus, we can legally count them present."

The student involved in the suit, Andrea Hernandez, was attending Rutherford Institute Science and Engineering Academy. Her family had protested the district's RFID policy on First Amendment and civil liberties grounds, claiming that the requirement to wear a tracking badge and its barcode violated her religious freedoms. The tagging resembled the "mark of the beast," as Hernandez and her father told Info Wars in an interview on October 3.

Steve Hernandez and his daughter Andrea, interviewed by Alex Jones' Info Wars show on October 3.

The school had offered a compromise—a badge without an RFID chip. But when the Hernandez family declined, the administrators informed them in a letter that Andrea would be removed from the magnet school and sent to the high school she was zoned for (which has not yet implemented the RFID program).

On Wednesday, a judge granted the Hernandez family a temporary injunction to prevent the school from expelling Andrea. The Hernandez family is suing for a permanent injunction, and for court-determined damages for violation of their civil liberties.

211 Reader Comments

I expect the family will win, because they're playing the religion card in Texas, but to me, if you choose to join a group, any group, you choose to follow their rules. Otherwise get them to change the rules, don't ask for special treatment.

Does this make sense as a freedom of religion issue? What if my religious beliefs did not jive with the school's dress code? Or the curriculum? Does the school have to meet everyone's religious requirements?

Also, I'm confused about the privacy issues here? Are people upset that the school wants to track students within the school? How is this different than hall passes?

Apparently cows aren't the only cattle in the state of Texas. They treat their school children like herded livestock. I'm sure this state with its independence aspirations will grow a fine young generation of men and women--with the mindset that people are, well, animals. Good luck.

Clearly no one in that video understands how RFID works. RFID is not actively tracked. It's not GPS. It's not "experimental." It's not going to make the student trackable by "pedophiles."

All their arguments against it are circular and hand-wavy. It's a violation of your religious rights how? What rights are you losing? This is a joke, and my palm was firmly planted to my face watching that video.

I can see (although not agree with) the issue with RFIDs. I can't see the issue regarding bar codes. It will be interesting if the young lady refuses to get a driver's license for the same reason. At least in my state, the driver's license has a bar code.

And of course, she may want to work at a company that uses RFIDs in their badges to open security doors, including the front door. She definitely cannot refuse that on religious grounds (clearly outside the bounds of reasonable accommodation to let her use a system different from every other employee). How far will this "religious objection" be maintained in real life?

Also, I'm confused about the privacy issues here? Are people upset that the school wants to track students within the school? How is this different than hall passes?

The school is doing it for financial reasons. They want to be rewarded if students are on campus but aren't actually attending their classes.

There are certainly other ways to check whether someone attend classes other than tracking chip.

Such as ID badges, which are exactly the same except they don't have the chip? Truancy officers, which take manpower and other resources and can't be everywhere at once?It's not a privacy issue because this is just taking public school attendance count at both the school and classroom level. There's probably an RFID reader at the entrance and another one for each classroom.

The school is doing it for financial reasons. They want to be rewarded if students are on campus but aren't actually attending their classes.

it'd also have the side effect of identifying the students who aren't in class so they can do something to address that.

my job makes me wear a badge with RFID because all the doors are access-controlled and some of them are prox-only. could I sue them for that? if they offered the same compromise as the school district and replaced it with a magstripe-only badge, could I sue them again for making me use the side door with the swipe reader? if I actually did that, they'd just use the old trick of finding an unrelated reason to fire me.

Clearly no one in that video understands how RFID works. RFID is not actively tracked. It's not GPS. It's not "experimental." It's not going to make the student trackable by "pedophiles."

All their arguments against it are circular and hand-wavy. It's a violation of your religious rights how? What rights are you losing? This is a joke, and my palm was firmly planted to my face watching that video.

Defcon sessions have shown RFID to be readable at greater distances than you expect, so pedobears might find them handy. Of course, cellphones make better tracking devices (silent ping). WIFI equpped cellphones are even better for tracking since the tracking gear is cheaper.

Now a RFID chip in your butt could be considered the mark of the beast, but carrying a RFID is more like carrying an identification card. The fact she won't carry a badge without the RFID is proof positive this family is just a bunch of cranks.

Alex Jones is a master of cranking things up to 11. His stories always have a shade of truth in them, but his BS filter is very porous.

don't see why a school should be rewarded for fake attendance stats--if the school is porous enough that a significant number of kids can hang out and not be in class, then they should figure that out rather than spend a lot on a stupid RFID badge system. also, if it's a "magnet" school and their students aren't bothering to go to class, then they're doing it wrong.

Also, I'm confused about the privacy issues here? Are people upset that the school wants to track students within the school? How is this different than hall passes?

The school is doing it for financial reasons. They want to be rewarded if students are on campus but aren't actually attending their classes.

There are certainly other ways to check whether someone attend classes other than tracking chip.

Such as ID badges, which are exactly the same except they don't have the chip? Truancy officers, which take manpower and other resources and can't be everywhere at once?It's not a privacy issue because this is just taking public school attendance count at both the school and classroom level. There's probably an RFID reader at the entrance and another one for each classroom.

I think it's just the entrance of the school since the school's issue seems to be that students are on campus but not in class, thus counted absent when they're actually there.

Also, I'm confused about the privacy issues here? Are people upset that the school wants to track students within the school? How is this different than hall passes?

The school is doing it for financial reasons. They want to be rewarded if students are on campus but aren't actually attending their classes.

There are certainly other ways to check whether someone attend classes other than tracking chip.

Such as ID badges, which are exactly the same except they don't have the chip? Truancy officers, which take manpower and other resources and can't be everywhere at once?It's not a privacy issue because this is just taking public school attendance count at both the school and classroom level. There's probably an RFID reader at the entrance and another one for each classroom.

Why should school monitor them when they are not in class? Is it so hard to make some checkout only when entering class?

According to this article, she refused to wear the RFID badge due to the tag itself "violated her religious beliefs". When she was offered a badge with no tag, she refused to wear it for unknown reasons. If the judge had half a brain, and if this article is correct, she should lose.

The schools already have badges. They don't have privacy in the school, except for the bathrooms which they can lose as well if there is excessive vandalism in the restrooms.Everyone is already tracked with store discount cards, website cookies, speed passes in visas and master cards, toll tags in cars etc etc. and none of these are tithes to of the beast or any type of violation of our freed anyone than what we have to go through with the TSA. Now the school has an issue with truancy or just not going to class, and need money from the state. Should we hire more hall monitors or find some technology to find them for us? Do you remember how much time was spent with your teacher doing attendance? That is valuable teaching time that is being lost.

While I don't necessarily agree with the badges, I agree with the school expelling her if she doesn't want to follow the rules. If it was the public school she had to go then I would have a problem, but not if it is a private/charter school.

Why should school monitor them when they are not in class? Is it so hard to make some checkout only when entering class?

To make sure they're actually at the school. There are many reasons for this beyond ties to special funding for the school, there's also the issue of legal liability for student safety.

Checkout at entrance? About safety, once we know they entered school I'm sure there is some kind of CCTV at school which should do better job than simple location monitoring.

Yeah, CCTV cameras covering the school are much less Orwellian, intrusive, and expensive!

CCTV still make it harder to track certain student. GPS-like device makes it trivial to check every movement at any time. I mean why would you need to monitor whole school? Just put some nfc chips in doors and gates.

Honestly I wouldn't like to go to school that can't even know when their students attend classes without special chips.

According to this article, she refused to wear the RFID badge due to the tag itself "violated her religious beliefs". When she was offered a badge with no tag, she refused to wear it for unknown reasons. If the judge had half a brain, and if this article is correct, she should lose.

It wasn't for unknown reasons. This article is missing one fact that was present in other articles. The option of wearing the non-chipped badge had the additional condition that the student and her family from speaking negatively about the badge program and actually promote it.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.